COUNT TULSTOY'S DEATH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15033, 5 January 1911, Page 2

COUNT TULSTOY'S DEATH

AFFECTING' BEDSIDE SCENE'.

NO RECONCILIATION WITH

CHURCH,

(Fbou Odb Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 25.

Count Leo Tolstoy, whoso death was prematurely annoutioed as a sequel to his tlight from home, passed away on Sunday at the Russian railway station at Astopovo. In spite, of bishops' appeals, he refused to renounce his faith, and died unreconciled to the Church which had excommunicated him, Consequently there will- be no' requiem. His last words to the doctorsby his bedside were: "There are millions of people on the earth, and many suffer. Why, then, are you all around me?" At his own request, too, the Count's body will be buried on the hill at Yasnaya Pclyana, where he had played as a child. When Count Tclstoy fled from homo ho was taken ill at the wayside station of Aetapovo, and his flight was brought to a halt. In the course of Sunday afternoon he seems to have been l conscious of his approaching dissolution. About 2 o'clock ho had a fatting fit from enfeeblemont of the heart's action, which lasted 20 minutes. Mo suddenly seized the hand of hio daughter Tfttiana, who was relieving her youngei sister (Alexandra), and, drawing her nearer to him, he muttered: "Well, t'his is the end; that's all." Tatiana, unable to withdraw her hand, had to call the doctors from the next room, without rising from her knees at the btdsido. After an injection of a solution of camphor the patient got better, but about midnight he had a second attack, during which ho is roported to have pushed tho doctors aside and actually to have attempted to got up. Ho succeeded in putting his feet to tho ground, but extromo weakness overcame him, and ho was placed properly on the bed. Ho refused to inhalo oxygen, and wlien tho doctors proposed removing him to another bed, at first ho objected, but then said: "However, do what you like with me. Ite all tho samo to mo now." FINAL WORDS. After recovering eomeivhat from his fainting 6cizuro, and when the attentions of the doctors were apparently causing him some annoyance, Count Tolstoy said to his daughter, who was trying to quieten him: " There are millions of other Buffering people in the world. Why ore so many of you looking after me also?' This remark is variously given , as regards its wording in different telegrams, but 'ihe eonso is precisely the same in all the reports. This was tho last coherent utterance of the great writer before he became unconscious and gradually sank to his final rest.

It appears that the Count died without a reconciliation with tho Church, ia spite

of all the endeavours of the ecelesiastic-l authorities to induce him to recant ami repent. The abbot of the monastery at Optin Poostinye, where Count Tolstoy called to eeo his sister in the course of his flight from home, was sent by orders of the Holy Synod to Astapovo on Saturday to receive the Count, if possible, back into the arms of the Church. The doctors and friends considered that the patient was tco ill to receive strangers, and although this monastic official made several earnest requests to be allowed only just to cross the threshold of the sickroom andi impart hjs benediction, the refusal to admit him was adhered to until the last. The Count's daughter. Alexandra, after consulting with the'<k>elors and her father, wrote to the abbot staling that Count Leo wished to seo nobody and' that his wishes must remain sacred.

Countess Sophie, the wife, who was advised not to let the fact of her presence at Astapovo bo known to her sick husband! for foar of increasing the danger to his life through undue excitement, appears to havo gone to the bedside only when the Count had sunk too low to be able to,recognise her. THE FUNERAL. The burial of Tolstoy took place a few days after his death in the garden of his old home of Yosnaya. Polyana. The coffin was carried , by the Count's sons and peasants, preceded by other peasants bearing a white linen band with the words: "Leo Nikolaieviteh, the memory of your goodness will never fade among us orphaned peasants."

As the coffin was borne forth from this house on its final journey to the wooded. knoll where the burial was to take place the whole of the crowd surrounded the house, fell on their kness, and again sang the corale " Eternal Memory," to the strains of which it was taken through the orchard to the grave. Behind the coffin walked the Countess. A striking feature of the proceedings was tho way in which the whole procession was encircled by men holding each other's hands. The grave, which is surroumlcd by nine oaks, had been dug by the peasants of the immediate neighbourhood. During the 'whole of the burial the crowd knelt on the ground and 1 sang a chorale. The sobs of many unable to keep back their teare could ibe heard. No speeches were delivered, but a man in tie crowd cried out: " Our great Leo is dead! Long live our great Leo's spirit! May his precepts of Christianity and love be fulfilled."

The house where Tolstoy passed away as been vacated by its tenants by order of the railway conipany, and will be preserved as a museum.